WIP Wednesday: There's always time for hellos and goodbyes

It's the last week of October, so I'm saying goodbye to one month and hello to another.  But that theme has repeated itself throughout the week.

First, a bittersweet goodbye as a local yarn store closes.  Farewell, Old Oaks Ranch.  I'll miss the statue garden and the alpacas, but I'll look forward to the new yarn stores which may be opened in its wake.  And I'll always have the closing sale yarn purchases to remember it by:

Apparently I start stashing when I feel sentimental.  Or any other emotion.  I had seen the skein of Araucania Puelo during the Crawl and liked it, so I went ahead and got it this time.  I also got two balls of Liberty Wool Light, because I always like their color mixes, and this chartreuse, gray, cream and lilac is no exception.  I'm thinking a pair of yoga socks, and maybe enough for some matching mitts?  And then, three colorways, two skeins each, of Llama Lace.  You gotta love the name.  And after seeing someone else's WIP in the store using it, I couldn't choose between them and just brought them all home with me.

Also coming home with me is my own alpaca!

No, not one of those, unfortunately.  An alpaca needle felting kit, including naked alpaca starter:

Cute, no?

On a happier note, I also bid adieu to one of my WIPs, the Christmas knit.  It feels good to get that one completed and move on to the next gift.  This one I'm going to sew!  In the meantime, I'm also making progress on my selfish knit, the Fruit Loopy Shawl.  It's still colorful and makes me smile whenever I pick it up.

Everything isn't coming to an end, though, some things are starting up in November.  Specifically, NaNoWriMo.  I've mentioned this before, but basically, I'm going to be trying to write 50,000 words over the course of the 30 days in November.  I know it's 'Novel' writing month, but I'm actually working on a collection of short stories.  Shh, no one tell the strict NaNo dictators or I'll be smeared with red ink and thrown in a life-sized slush pile.  Just kidding.  I'm looking forward to the mad panic of blurting all of the words onto the keyboard and getting the stories out of my head.  And hopefully attending some write-ins to engage in that very specific kind of socializing that involves staring at your computer and working intensely…around other people doing the same thing.  Communal isolation.

Alright, so those are the beginnings, middles, and endings for this week's WIP.  For more posts, visit Tami's Amis.